Proposed Rhode Island Gas-Fired Plant on Life Support

MDN previously told you about a new natural gas-fired plant planned for the socialist paradise of Rhode Island, home to old money and people who oppose change of any kind (see New NatGas Powered Electric Plant Coming to…Rhode Island?!). The plant would lower RI residents’ electric bills by a collective $280 million and replace aging coal and oil power plants–cleaning the air in the process. With the jobs created, the investment in the facility, and lower electric rates, it’s calculated this single plant will have a $1.3 billion impact on the economy of RI. And yet so-called environmentalists still oppose it. The plan was to begin construction in summer 2016 and have the plant up and running by 2019. What’s happened since the initial announcement? A lot of bureaucratic bull. The project has been under review and a final decision by the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission was slated for January 2019. But that’s all now in doubt. Because of delays in building the plant, the Independent System Operator (ISO) New England filed an application last week with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to cancel the plant’s capacity supply obligation, or CSO. CSO’s are contracts awarded years in advance to supply electricity. ISO says there’s no way this plant will be producing electricity on time, and so they want out of the contract, to find someone else to produce the electricity. Yesterday RI state regulators put their review of the project on hold until FERC makes a decision about canceling the CSO contract. At this point we’d have to say the project is on life support, and RI is reaching their withered, old hand over to the outlet to pull the plug…